


gatorbait (and other impermanencies)

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: Hurt Jake Peralta [2]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Florida, Gen, Homesickness, Hurt Jake Peralta, Whump, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 01:23:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19031869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Jake is sick of living someone else's life, but there's nothing else to do but live it.





	gatorbait (and other impermanencies)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written about Jake's time in witness protection so I hope I did it justice, please comment suggestions for more fics if you have any! Thanks for reading :)

Florida isn't _all_ bad, if Jake really thinks hard about it. I mean, he got those kick-ass frosted tips, and he has a four-wheeler that he has no idea how to control, and he gets to watch Holt gossip with the neighbourhood ladies. It isn't all bad! He has fun some of the time. He has a hot tub, for crying out loud.

This is what he tells himself when he wakes up breathing in stifling silty air, his skin itching with another life, head splitting with memories he isn't allowed to have. He always reaches to the bare side of the bed and there's never anyone there, because Amy is always states away. He can't stop thinking that he could die and she wouldn't know, probably wouldn't be told for weeks. He could die and no one in goddamn fucking Florida would care. 

God, he hates Florida. He's never going to Disneyland again. 

The heat is one of the biggest issues. His garden is dry and rotting and makes his stomach turn every time Jake looks out his smeared window. He refuses to water it because that would mean he was going to be here long term - even though it's been four months already. So he just watches it fizzle in the humid heat and lets the grass crunch unsettlingly under his sandals whenever he goes out. He burns often because he never remembers suncream - it was something Amy always scolded him about - and his skin is red and swollen and as uncomfortable as his new name.

 _Not new name_ , Jake reminds himself grimly, _your real name. Your name is Larry and if you're anyone else or have ever been anyone else, you're going to die._

The nightmares are another problem. Jake dreams of the muzzle of a gun in his mouth; he tastes gunpowder and the sour aftertaste of the bright blue energy drink everyone here seems to be guzzling constantly. He dreams that Figgis breaks down the door and tells him that he's already got Holt, that they're both gonna die because Jake couldn't keep his fat fucking mouth shut. And so Jake dies, over and over again, every night.

Then he wakes up and does it all over again.

And Amy - 

He can't even think of her, most of the time. It makes him want to cry in a way that Larry wouldn't, because Larry has never met a woman named Amy Santiago. Larry doesn't like Die Hard and he isn't in love and in pain; he's Florida born and raised and he's never had a bad dream in his life and he loves the sun that burns down everything in sight. Nope, Larry is just your average American burnout. He's never been to Brooklyn and he's never going to. 

He's never going home - no, he's never going to Brooklyn. Jake grits his teeth until his jaw aches; he's never been to Brooklyn.

The only sliver of normality Jake has is Holt, and even he seems to be adjusting pretty well. He must miss Kevin, but either he's better at handling it or he just doesn't break down in public. Maybe in his own condo that is identical to every other one on the street, Holt suffers just as loudly as Jake does.

But Jake can't think about suffering and Jake can't think about Amy, about how much he loves her, about whether she is safe and happy and whether she reaches for his side of the bed in the middle of the night too, fingers curling around something that isn't there until his hand drops heavily to the mattress. He can't quell the fire forever, though, and that's why when he's working on the case in the storage unit he gives himself that hour to be Jake again. 

And oh, it's so good to be Jake again, to touch the photo of Amy and actually acknowledge that he knows her. He likes being a cop again too, working his brain that he is sure is melting in all these heat and confusion - but he's trying to eeke blood from a stone. He can't find Jimmy Figgis and if he doesn't, he's never going home, and he's so homesick that it's like he's carrying a stone in his stomach.

Every week when the hour is up, Jake Peralta walks out of the storage unit and into Larry Sherbert's life with the sound of asphalt sizzling. Rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat.


End file.
